by

North Park- The Outdoor Gym

photo My friend Jack McArdle says that North Park is the only place where you have to apologize for running 5 miles. “Hey Jack- how many did you run today?” “Only 5 miles.” The looks of pity come out and you feel like you have just gained 10 pounds. North Park is our little gem of a park where we have a 5 mile running path around a lake filled with trout, 42 miles of trails, a beautiful golf course, and a new zip line course. North Park is truly our outdoor gym. The runners in the park are serious and it is kind of funny in a way seeing that most people couldn’t run to the mailbox.

I used to play a lot of tennis in the park. I played a lot in college and when I was home, I played as much as I could. Truth is that I only was a decent “B” class player with my self taught ground strokes and serve that resembled an overcaffeinated orchestra conductor performing “The Flight of the Valkyries.” I soon tired of tennis and saw a guy running by the courts every day at the same time. They called him “Ten Mile” Bill. You could set your watch by him. Another group came by with a guy I knew in high school and Eileen Petrone the original Great Race Womens champ and the first Pittsburgh Marathon women’s champion. I decided I would be a runner and join the running boom. I bought myself some shoes and started to go to Stone Field the assembly point for Hot Harry’s North Park Runners. Harry was an affable guy who I will talk about in a later post. Harry is the Pied Piper of the park and everyone is welcome to join his club with no meetings, no dues, just run at the park and get a drink out of Harry’s trunk at the end of your run. Harry introduced himself and introduced me to Les Brodie and Ralph Schmidt who taught me the finer points of running as well as the finer points of practical jokes. If you ran with their posse, and had to answer natures call in the woods, they would pelt you with snowballs and laugh like hyenas. Ralph and Les were not the perpetrators but some of the comedians in their group delighted in this practice. If you dared use the port- a- john, you risked being tipped over with the same joyful derision coming your way. I had a lot of laughs and got in pretty good shape. Harry had a lot of names for people in the park. Big Nosed Bill, Ten Mile Bill, Water Bottle Bob,Sad Bill and “Bushy” Debbie. Never could quite figure that one out but we all knew eventually who Harry was talking about. By the way, Ralph’s daughter Allison was just a pup when we ran together. She was the Olympic Gold Medalist in swimming at the London Games this summer. Time flies and little girls grow up.

I started to run 10 K races with the group. We ran in every one we could find. The Butler 10K, The Great Race, The East Bum 10K,the no-name classic, you name it – we ran it. My goal was to break 40 minutes and eventually my PR was 36 minutes. I never got faster than that but the carrot out there was enough to inspire me. I made a lot of friends at the park like the group you see in the picture above. This was taken at the Monticello in Charlottesville where our friends the Habay’s moved. We all went to visit and we are still good friends to this day.(Nice retro Oakley sunglasses George). Our group ran together, ate together, went to movies together, and basically forged a great friendship through running at the park. Times changed, folks got married, had kids, and now a lot of them that left are migrating back to the park with their grown children and grand children. Most of them kept up the regime to one degree or another because they were serious about their fitness. Hot Harry and the Outdoor Gym have kept us all in the game and no gym can give you fresh air, fitness and friends like North Park. I got into cycling and run now in the winter on the trails. My road running days are over because of the pounding on the knees, but my winter running on the trails reminds me of the early days of pelting snowballs, laughs, and blue water from the tipping port a johns. I don’t apologize for running only 5 miles. That is actually a pretty good run for me these days. But the attitude and accountability has been taken up by the younger generation. But the rest of us delight in reminding them of the old days. Remember -the older we get, the better we were. Thanks for reading and stay active.

by

The DeJuan Blair All Stars

photo For those of you who know me and those of you who know me through the blog, you know that I am an outdoors guy. I ski, hike, ride mountain and road bikes, showshoe, all things outdoors- all the time. I had my son Jack up on a pair of skis at 2&1/2 and on a bike by age 4. I had visions of Jack, Janet and me spending our lives together as an active, outdoors family. Imagine my surprise when in the 5th grade, he started shooting basketballs at my in-laws carport with lessons from my ex-hoopster father in law and my mother in law who was the consumate cheerleader. He came to me and said that he wanted to play basketball. I said,” Basketball? Basketball?” ” We don’t do basketball, we are an outdoors family- we ski in the winter.” My lovely wife gave me a look that said all too clearly that,” its not about you big guy, it is about him and what he wants to do with his friends.

Well, being the obsessive compulsive person that I am, I got him involved with the Eden Christian Academy grade school team.In addition, I talked to Ernie Kuysner, the Adidas Rep, that we met at the Y who got us involved in AAU Basketball and Daryn Freedman- Basketball Stars of America http://www.basketballstarsofamerica.com. We were on our way and Janet and I never missed a practice or a game. Fast forward, and now we are involved with North Allegheny High School freshman and JV ball and still with BSA which has proven to be a great experience. There is a bit of a riff I have discovered between high school coaches and AAU coaches. High School coaches believe that AAU is unstructured and emphasises the individual instead of regimented team play. But all the college coaches come to AAU tournaments to view top college prospects so you can come to your own conclusion. Suffice to say that the tournanments were a lot of fun with interesting parents and well coached teams. The travel as a family was really the best for me. People asked me if I trained Jack and I always say,” I can’t even dribble. I am an outdoors guy – remember.”

Well at the beginnning of last season after JV ball was over, we were playing our first tournament with a BSA team when Jack drained 11 three point shots in a row against a Maryland team. There was a team on the sidelines who were watching him and from that moment on, they kept texting him and asking him to play for their team- the DeJuan Blair All Stars. This team is an inner-city team named after the former Pitt player and current San Antonio Spurs star. As it turned out, one of the coaches is Darelle Porter who played for Pitt and coached DeJuan as a young boy. His son DJ is on the team and is a legitimate D-I college prospect. Maurice Montgomery is the head coach and called Jack and asked him to play. Well circumstances played out and the next thing we know, Jack is wearing the black and silver of the DB squad at the King James Tournament in Cleveland.

This was a whole different experience for us but the family of DB was very welcoming and easy going. Honestly, I didn’t have much reference with city kids and parents and this came as a welcome surprise to me with their friendly and welcoming demeanor. As it turned out, we had a great season which culminated in the Nationals in Orlando,Fl. The boys finished 10th out of 114 teams in AAU Division II. Division I is the tournament where all the kids going to Duke,NC, Pitt, etc. play and D-II is all the rest which is pretty competitive seeing that teams qualify from all over the country for both tournaments. But this is not the story I want to tell.

Jack had some great coaching along the way and learned life lessons from guys like Pete Strobl http://www.thescoringfactory.com and Steve Brodzinski http://www.pittsburghbasketballreport.com. Along with Daryn Freedman, these guys taught Jack the importance of commitment to a sport and to a team. That is what impressed me as I learned more about basketball. I still don’t know jack about most of basketball, but I am learing and listening to these guys. I learned a lot about many aspects of team sports and sportsmanship. When we met up with Maurice and Darelle, they continued on this path and got the boys involved in community service like Ronald McDonald House Charities. The boys serve meals and interact with the children who are waiting on life saving operations from UPMC-Children’s Hospital. Their stories touched the hearts of our coaches and their commitment to RMHC as “their team” has been commendable and has taught the boys that service is most important in this world.

The DB family is not all about fun and basketball games. These folks work very hard to give their kids the opportunity to play basketball at a high level with great personal sacrifice. There have been tough experiences,for example, with kids who have lost their fathers to manslaughter and have been raised by hard working single moms. Others who have had a myriad of personal and financial difficulties but manage to keep a smile on their face as they see their sons compete and succeed. You learn a lot about people when you see them under stress but the thing about the DB family is that they are loving and helpful even under dire personal struggles. When Janet and I found out about the Nationals last year, we learned that 26 people would be staying in one house. We wondered how all of that was going to work but with kids all over the floors at night, constant trips to the grocery store, running back and forth between games, cooking, cleaning, it was one of the best weeks that we have ever spent in our lives. We can’t wait to go back and do it again for the last time seeing that U-17 is the last age group for AAU.

Perhaps the best lessons learned through DB and basketball in general were learned by me. You can’t live vicariously through your children and you have to let them grow without interference. Jack will be 18 soon and the days of me really telling him what to do are over. I have to let him experience life as a man and if he asks for advice I will give it in the best loving way that I can but not until he asks. We have had our ups and downs with basketball but for the most part what I have experienced is 30 percent basketball and 70 percent life lessons and relationships created. When that last basket is made at the Nationals this July(swish- nothing but net), this outdoors guy will shed a tear or two. I am not sure what lies ahead for Jack and basketball but if the DB experience is the end of the trail, he has had a great run and he, his mother and I will move on to the next adventures in life. As usual, we will be watching from the bleachers, but we will see a young man mature and grow into the man that God created him to be. The game of life is next and we can’t wait to see the score. Thanks for reading.

by

The “not so proficient” Angler

IMG00178photophoto Well, I have just sharpened and waxed all the skis to put away at the end of the season. It is April here in Pa. and although there is still snow in other areas, we are moving on here and I don’t have any ski trips left. Our local hill is closing this week and it is time to think spring. It is also time for a little self deprecation here as I tell some more stories of the 58 year old kid. When I think April, a number of thoughts come to my head but fishing seems to be the opener for the new round of posts. Now if you look at the picture above, my proficiency in the fishing world will be revealed by my question of ” where is the fast fishing area?” As I ponder this sign, I often wonder why people fish slowly versus quickly? Oh well, that will haunt me for a while as I begin my saga of my fishing experiences.

My earliest memories were in the Florida Everglades with my grandfather,John Reynolds, and his two cronies Judge Miller and Mr. Bill Marcus. The three of these guys introduced me to fishing by taking me in airboats and small skiffs in the canals of the Everglades. My grandpap thought it was funny to sneak up on a floating alligator and poke him with his fishing pole. I almost soiled myself as I saw the mouth open and look at us with a menacing smile. The three cronies would laugh and then turn over the outboard to me so I could practice canal navigation. Almost tipped it a few times much to their concern, but they insisted that I was the captain of the skiff. Didn’t catch a thing but had fun watching the gators.

Fast forward and now I had a drivers license and grandpap and my mother thought that was great as now I was able to drive the boys to North Carolina and the Oregon Inlet Fishing Center(info@oregon-inlet.com). It was here that finally after all those years we actually caught a fish and much to my surprise the best catch was a snub nosed dolphin( Pompano) that was just shy of the North Carolina record. We had to filet it because we wanted to have a fish fry back at the place where we stayed. We also took some home and as memory serves me, most of the road trip was talking to myself while the old guys slept in the back seat.

Mirror Lake in Canada was another venue for the guys which was north of North Bay. We got there by pontoon airplane and stayed in a little cabin on the lake. The only folks there were the cook and our crew. The boys go to bed at 8:00 PM and rise at 4:00. Not a teenagers schedule but I learned to play the famous Canadian game “Trivial Pursuit” with the cook every night. I was amazed at how fresh the fish tasted each night and how still the night air is in Canada in late summer. Great memories and perhaps the last time with the guys who were in their 80s at the time. I still have my grandpap’s fishing tackle which leads me to the next little ditty.

When my son Jack was little, I took him fishing at the pond behind our church. We used minnows and caught a couple of small mouthed bass( pure dumb luck) but he was thrilled and that is the last time I ever got anything but weeds out of that pond. We went back and were skunked many times. Jack looked at me as if I had lost my touch but I vowed to make it up to him and show him that I was a great angler. Like when we were with good friends down in the Outer Banks and I had my ocean rods. Jack would come out in the morning when he woke up and see how I was doing. Again I was having bad luck as I had tried every bait that the shop recommended. Nothing. I saw the disappointment on his face and I decided to try something drastic. The next morning I rose early and drove to he Piggly Wiggly Grocery Store and went straight to the fish department. I purchased a nice Red Snapper and brought it back with me. As I deftly attached the cold, dead Snapper to my line, I cast it out in the ocean hoping that nothing would enjoy it until Jack came out. As I saw him come on to the beach with my friend Tom, I began a ritual of fightning a big catch. I reeled and pulled and reeled and pulled and said to them, ” I finally hooked a big one!” When at last I reeled it in, it was covered in the most ghastly seaweed imaginable and they both looked puzzled. Jack noticed that the snapper was not moving and asked if it was dead. Tom suspected that something wasn’t right and I whispered to him…..”Piggly Wiggly.” I thought he was going to have a heart attack laughing but the humor was lost on Jack.

Finally a few years ago we went to Hilton Head and I booked a small fishing charter with Captain Dave Fleming of “The Mighty Mako” http://www.mightymako.com Dave was an affable guy and was wonderful with Janet and Jack as he said that the fishing was not too good but we could catch………..sharks!!! Now not far from where Jack and I swam in the bay the day before, we were reeling in baby shark after baby shark until Janets steel leader was bitten off by what Captain Dave described as a bull shark that we would not have wanted to bring in anyhow. Jack was thrilled and scared at the shark catch and Janet was amazed at how deftly Dave handled the sharks. Captain Dave suspected that I was a half assed fisherman so he let me bring in the smaller sharks and he took my picture as I held the first shark I had ever touched in a death grip on the back of his head. That was a good day fishing and we have not had much luck since.

So as proficient as I like to think of myself in the ski world, I am really not so proficient in the angler world. I have had dumb luck, assisted success, and dreadful experiences like when I went back to the pond with Jack and didn’t notice that my reel was not tightly attached to my rod. As I wound up for a collossal cast, I ended up casting the whole reel into the middle of the lake. So much for my fishing for that day. Jack and I headed to breakfast. The memories of the old guys, the fun with Jack and Janet, and the sheer buffoonery of my angling prowess gives me many smiles as the opening day of fishing closes in on us in Pa. There is nothing like the smile of a young boy when he catches a fish and nothing like the smile of a proud dad as he sees him bring in the big one. Go fish with your children and your wife. No matter how good or bad you are, you will have a good family time and have lasting memories. Thanks for reading.

by

Maximum Vertical Drop!!!

photo I am constantly amazed what technology has available for everyday schlubbs like me. I just purchased an I-Phone 5. I know – so what Pat? Hundred’s of thousands of people have the 5. But you must understand that for me- this is a big deal. I am having fun learning how to use it and the advantages of the I-Phone are revealed to my feeble mind every day. Take the App called Alpine Replay. My snowboarding friend Daryl Hasley( a technical guru and excellent snowboarder) set me up with this App to log information on my western ski trip. Once you log in, the App knows what area you are skiing, how many runs you took, what distance you covered, how fast your sustained speed was, what your highest speed was and the all important -vertical drop. For those of you not familiar with the term, vertical drop is a measurement of vertical distance covered by a skier. If the mountain has a maximum height of 7,000 feet, for example, and the base where the chair lift is at 5500 feet, the run that you skied to get to that chair had a vertical drop of 1500 vertical feet. Skiers measure their days by runs and vertical drop covered. When you Heli-Ski, the company guarantees so many feet of vertical drop to the client, or the company reimburses the skier for vertical drop not achieved. Conversely, if the skiers are doing well and the weather is good, they may go over their guarantee in which case the client must pay extra for the additional vertical drop. It is a measurement that is bragging rights to most skiers and the Alpine Replay App can tell you the statistics at the end of the day/week.

The cool thing about this App is that you can also measure yourself against others who are using it. Alpine Replay has users all over the world. I showed this to our group of guys this week and the challenge was on to beat the weekly record for vertical drop. I have blogged about our group in previous posts but suffice to say that we had our usual lineup of old guys who can ski. Eric Durfee is our fearless leader and annual host who lives in Tahoe. Mark Hutchinson and Proctor Reid are two of Eric’s buddies who grew up together in Vermont. Hutch was a former race coach at Stowe and Proctor raced for Dartmouth. Rounding out the group this year was another friend of Eric’s from college -Bart Smith who lives in Seattle and raced with Eric at Cornell. An extremely strong skier, Bart is a great guy and had a similar App called Ski Tracks spinnning on his I-Phone. These guys all ski hard every day and for a bunch of 58 year old guys, they are in tremendous shape and love to ski long and hard. The App was a perfect incentive to go “bell to bell.”

We skied several areas where the chalenging terrain made it difficult to log excessive vertical drop. However, on the day that we decided to crush the record for the week, we skied Northstar at Tahoe which has long flowing trails that are groomed to perfection allowing high speed turns and runs accompanied by fast high speed chairlifts. This is the perfect scenario for racking up maximum vertical drop. As we monitored our progress, we knew that we had to beat 47,000 vertical drop for the day which was the standing record by a guy from Mt. Snow,Vermont followed by another guy from Copper Mountain, Colorado. We had seen each of these guys records for the last couple of days and decided it would be fun to break their complacency by crushing their record. We hammered run after run right on each others heels down the smooth and flowing trails. As we entered the chair lift lines, we didn’t waste any time getting on the chair, exiting at the top and launching ourselves back down fast trails like Railsplitter, Challenge,and Washoe. We had to be careful of other guests at the resort who were moseying around the trails. The downhill skier has the right of way and we bore that in mind always as we rocketed past them on our quest for speed and distance. At about 3:45 I was just about out of battery and I didn’t want to lose the statistics so I uploaded the results, hit “OK” and my statistics( our statistics) came up in first place with 57,835 vertical feet logged. We took 35 runs to do it and we had the satisfaction to know that we crushed the guys from Vermont and Colorado even though we only know their name as Tom and Dan. But somewhere out there in cyber land, we were sure that they were crying in their beer when their effort for the day had been eclipsed by a bunch of has beens. But we loved it as we quaffed our end of the day pilseners at the base lodge bar.

The next day, we had another opportunity at Mt. Rose,Nevada. Same scenario- smooth groomed trails and really fast chairlifts. Actually Rose has the fastest chairs in Tahoe according to Eric and without much effort, the merry band of geriatric GS turners racked up 50,000 vertical feet. Had we not had a leisurely lunch, we may have broken the record again but we ended up second to the guy from Vermont by 1000 vertical feet. He probably felt good to be on top again not to realize that with just a little effort by the old guys, he would be crying in his beer again.

The App was a lot of fun on this trip and it gave some guys from our group some incentive long after the starting gates and slalom and GS courses have become distant memories. We still like to ski hard and fast and every year we vow to stay in shape so we can come back the next year and the next year and the year after that. ” Do not go gently into that good night…….Rage, Rage against the dying of the light.” Thanks for reading.

by

Tahoe- Heaven on Earth

photophoto When I die, I hope God sends me to Lake Tahoe. I am sure that somehow this magical place is on God’s radar screen as a part of Heaven reserved for faithful servants/skiers like me. At least I hope so. In all seriousness, every time I have the good fortune of coming here, I see beauty beyond comparison. The lake itself is the most beautiful color of blue which photography cannot adequetely capture, and it is surrounded by the most majestic mountains which are home to spectacular hiking, mountain biking and skiing.

I am out here with my group of guys whom I have skied with for a long time. Our good friends the Durfees are such gracious hosts to this band of ruffians who invade their home every year on the annual guys “ski till you die” trip. I got a little warm up this year by sking Mt. Rose and Homewood before the other guys got here. Rose has a memorable view of Reno on one side and Lake Tahoe on the other side and not only is it visually stunnning but it is also a great ski area which most people don’t recognize. I had the good fortune to ski Homewood yesterday which is my 108th different ski area in my resume. I have this running contest with my friend Mike Smith to see who can ski the most ski areas in their lifetime. Mike is still ahead of me by 19 areas but I am slowly catching him. Homewood is right on the lake and has perhaps the most brilliant and visually stimulating views of the mountains and the water. When you ski to the middle of the mountain, you look ahead and it seems like you could ski right into the lake. The area has an old school feel to it and the only drawback is slow chair lifts. But they are slated for a high speed chair next season according to the locals. I stopped at a neat little place called ” The Dam Cafe” in Tahoe City on the way to Homewood. Their organic coffee and pastries were amazing and I stopped there after skiing to get a veggie sandwich that was as big as my head. The girls who work there are real free spirits true to the California lifestyle and if you want to be entertained by a waitstaff who are funny and relaxed in the California way, don’t miss “The Dam Cafe.”

Today the posse traveled to Squaw Valley -Home of the 1960 Winter Olympics and also home to some of the most famous ski racers and free skiers of all time. Olympians like Tamara McKinney, Darron Rahlves, and Julia Mancuso call Olympic Valley home and they are very proud of the tradition that surrounds this amazing mountain. The geography here is amazing in that the ski area is surrounded by massive cliffs and rock formations in this geologically active area. In big snow years, there is so much to ski and the really good skiers use the rock formations to launch some big air in their daily skiing repetoire. Some of the best skiers in the world call Squaw their home. Our group skied all over that mountain today and tonight we are feeling the effects of skiing 27,000 vertical feet and 20 runs of demanding steeps and soft snow conditions in brilliant sunshine. I rented a black Chevy Suburban and when we travel to the different areas, I wear my dark Raybans. We look just like the Secret Service in this massive vehicle but it has a lot of room for all the gear and we can really stretch out. A little tough on gas but a great travel vehicle.

Like any guys trip, the old stories come out on the chairlifts, at lunch and dinner. Mark Hutchison and Proctor Reid are native Vermonters and have a lot of great ski stories and they run into people out here who know them or know their frineds back in Vermont. The ski community is actually small and it is amazing who you bump into all the way out here. Lastly, we had the good fortune to see the US National Ski Championships at Squaw today and the final event was the women’s slalom. These women are amazing athletes and my buddies who were former ski racers remarked how conditioning, equipment and training has elevated the sport to where it is today. Mikaela Shifferin was racing today. She is the current World Cup Slalom Champion and she just turned 18!!!

I have several more days here and then it will be time to return to the real world. Thanks to our friends the Durfees, we all have the great fortune to come out to visit this paradise. If you have never been to Lake Tahoe, please put that on your bucket list too. It is visually breathtaking. The saying around here is that people come for the winter but stay for the summers. It is beautiful here all year long. Don’t miss it and thanks for reading.

by

US. Ski Team- Hard Work and Dedication

us%20ski%20team.finals2013 Taking a time out here for a quick shout out to our US Ski Team. Another fabulous season with Ted Ligety adding another World Cup Giant Slalom Title to his resume and establishing himself as the undisputed King of the discipline. Lindsey Vonn, even though out with a horrific knee injury, won yet another World Cup Downhill Title even though she didn’t finish the season. Lindsey had successful knee surgery and vows to be back better than ever for the 2014 Olympics in Sochi. But the revelation of the season was 18 year old Mikaela Shiffrin from Vail, Colorado. She is pictured above with Ted Ligety and the rest of their hard working coaches and Ski Team staff. Mikaela was 17 when she won her first World Cup Slalom event and when she just turned 18, she wrapped up the World Cup Overall Slalom Title. An amazing feat for someone so young and against such stiff World Cup competition.

What does it take to ski and win at this level? Hard work and dedication. I have had the wonderful experience of skiing with some of the US Ski Team members in my past. As I mentioned in my heli- skiing post, I had the good fortune to ski with some old school members Max Marolt and Dave Gorsuch. Even though these guys were older, they were in fantastic shape and their technique was world class. Their stories were great and they came from the generation where not many people outside the ski world had any clue of their accomplishments. Moving forward, I had the great experience of taking a race clinic with Dianne Roffe who was a World Champion and Olympic medalist. The interesting thing about Dianne was that she taught in a ski instructors clinic. Nowadays, the PSIA ski instructors organization is embracing race technique taught by the US Ski Coaches Association. The connection now is that the instructors organization is recognizing that ski instructor technique is not always fast in a race course. However, after viewing a lot of footage of slow motion racing, PSIA is coming to the understanding that World Cup Ski Techique is really founded on good technique taught at an early age. To glide well on skis is something that a racer either has or does not have. It is a feel thing that really cannot be taught. But other than that, good technique coupled with a good feel for the skis can win races. That is what Dianne taught that day and it was an interesting lesson to me whose experience was limited to ski instruction.

Fast forward to another race clinic at Killington,Vermont with Christin Cooper the TV analyist, former US Ski Team Member and Olympic silver medalist in slalom. Coop was fun. She had a great sense of humor and was still dedicated to the sport by working with instructors and masters racers. While viewing our initial run, I caught an edge,blew out of both bindings and flew headfirst down the hill sliding on my belly. As I came to a stop at the edge of her ski boots, I looked up and said,” How was that?” She said,” Not what I had in mind but you can try it again.” She was another one who joined good technique with teaching us about line through a race course and how to ski fast.

One final experience was with Phil Mahre, the World Cup Overall Champion and Olympic gold medalist. I had the good fortune of being his host for the day at our home area of Seven Springs. I learned a lot about the Ski Team and his training that day and when I skied behind him, he laid trenches in the snow with perfectly carved precision . There was no skid detected at all and his flawless technique was marked by his amazing strength. Phil was racing on the Pro Tour at the time which was where retired World Cup racers finished their careers. The only reason Phil was racing and doing these clincs was out of gratitude to his life long racing sponsor K-2 Skis. He and his brother Steve trained hard and set their own courses every day even though they were technically retired from the US Ski Team. Training was in their bones and they did it out of respect for a ski company that was faithful to them all through their career. K-2 made a lot of money through their association with the Mahre brothers, but the reverse can also be said. It was , and is to this day, still a good relationship. The common thread in all of this is hard work, dedication , understanding of good ski technique and respect for those who brought you to the dance. In this age of entitlement by athletes, I look at the example of the US Ski Team and their hard work. Look at this picture. you see two champions flanked by a cadre of coaches and staff who have one goal in mind- winning. They and all their predecessors did it in similar fashion without any sense of entitlement. The clock doesn’t lie and you can’t hide behind a team when you are in the starting gate. Very impressive to me for many years and still today when I look at this picture and look at the accomplishments of the team. Please make a donation when you can to the US Ski Team. They work hard and deserve your support. Thanks for reading.

by

The Joy of Spring Skiing

IMG00138-20100210-1422 You know, around these parts we have this crazy rodent named Phil who comes out of his hole in February and the prognosticators of Gobbler’s Knob in Punxatawney,Pa. decide with Phil that winter is often on its way out. Then you get a few nice days in March, coupled by the time change and people get looney. They forget about skiing and get their golf clubs out and hack around in the cold and the mud, or they fish in the streams that still have ice on them and tell themselves that it is spring. The hackers look for their plugged balls and often times try to warm themselves with coffee because it is not quite the warm spring day they anticipated. Why do this when you can still ski? So many people give up when there is plenty of snow on the mountain and the warm late winter days soften the snow into very skiable corn snow which can be enjoyed into April and often times later in the season out west.

Most skiers suffer through the brutal winds and icy conditions of winter and when the big payoff comes with spring skiing, their thoughts turn to activities that can be done for the rest of the year. Why rush it? The ski areas try to keep the attraction by reducing rates, having spring carnivals where people dress in costume and have pond skims on skis, and other festivities that celebrate the end of the ski season. From New England to the West, these carnivals keep the season alive but lots of folks don’t attend unless they are diehards like me and my friends. I remember as a kid, going to Holiday Valley in Western New York for a spring skiing weekend where lift tickets were discounted if you wore pajamas and robes. Of course all of us kids couldn’t wait to wear the stuff and we were welcomed by a pancake breakfast at the top of the mountain as part of the festivities with fresh, local maple syrup as the main attraction of the breakfast. I remember green beer flowing on St. Patrick’s Day at Whiteface Mountain in Lake Placid a few years back where the weather was in the 60’s, the snow was perfect and the on-mountain fun was outrageous. Years ago when Coors Light was in an experimental stage and the brewery was looking for some feedback on a new light beer, the silver cans were first given to all the spring skiers on the deck at Mid-Vail. I remember filling out the survey on what I thought of the light beer in the silver can. Amazing how a product that started as a spring skiing give a way, became a staple of American lifestyle. Guys wearing t-shirts and shorts, girls wearing bikini tops and windpants, crazy hats, bands rocking on the decks, all around good times mark the spring skiing period which should not be missed at this time of year.

Personally, I like all the festivities but what I most enjoy about spring skiing is the opportunity to ski some pretty cool stuff with soft corn conditions out west. As you can see from the picture above, we like to climb to some interesting runs in places like Kirkwood in Tahoe and Mammoth Mountain in California. If you are willing to get a little sweat on,sling your skis over your shoulders, and climb in sunny conditions, you can hang your skis out over some chutes, ravines, and other challenging places with excellent soft conditions that make it easier to ski at spring time rather than the hard, icy conditions the rest of the year. You still have to pay attention and make sure that you make that first turn, but this is what you pay your money for if you make your way to the west for spring skiing. After a number of runs and a number of climbs, that beer at the end of the day sure tastes good and we all entertain each other with stories of the great runs experienced that day. As we get older, the stories get better, the runs become steeper, but like the fisherman who tells of the big one that got away, it all feels good to partake and to tell the tale.

As my friends at home here are getting their bikes ready, I will be heading west soon for some great end of the season adventures with the Eric Durfee posse whom I have posted about previously. These diehards( with yours truly) gather in the spring to end the season together with some great skiing and even greater comraderie. It has become a tradition and I will be posting some live action from the group in the coming weeks. This blog, as you know, talks about the adventures of a 58 year old kid and I am happy to report that the adventures will continue “live” with the end of the season spring skiing. Thanks for reading and stay tuned. When I return, the new season of posts begin with more spring and summer based memories and adventures. Just like Jimmie Durante………….”I got a million of them…..ha,cha,cha,cha,chaaaaaaaa.”

by

The Great and Powerful Ranier

Mount_Rainier_over_Tacoma When you travel to the Pacific Northwest and you are driving north on US 5 up through Oregon, you start to see a different world and people who adapt to that different world. Portland has a cool vibe and people are really into their cycling, skiing, hiking, all things outdoors even in the foulest of weather. They have a great mindset that the weather never spoils their fun and they have the gear to ride, ski, hike and never think a thing about it. Those storms that come raging off the Pacfic dump Biblical proportions of rain and big time snow in the Cascades. Mt. Hood is probably the best known for sking in Oregon and it is the home to some fabulous summer skiing as well as race camps all year long. But in the winter, you can have some stormy days there with heavy wet Cascade snow where you can’t even see the summit. A dormant volcano, Hood stands among several dormant and not so dormant volcanoes which stick out of the skyline. Mt Bachelor near Bend gets its fair share of Cascade dumps as well and is a real man’s resort.

But perhaps the most startling and breathtaking view of any “volcano” is to keep driving north and head into the state of Washington and see the Great and Powerful Ranier. There is no man behind the curtain here. Ranier stands alone in majesty and overtakes you in the oddest of places. The first time I saw Ranier,I was driving in Seattle and as I turned the corner on a nice sunny day(unusual), it hit me right in the face. Wow!!! There it is- the Great and Powerful Mt. Ranier. Seems like you can’t escape it either. You drive downtown or along the coast, and it seems that wherever you turn, Ranier stalks you. Wow!!! There it is again. The picture above gives you an idea how it stands alone above the city landscapes in the Seattle area. Perhaps the best view of all besides climbing the darn thing is to see it from the northeast corner of the Mt. Ranier National Forest at Crystal Mountain Ski Resort. http://www.crystalmountainresort.com Crystal is in of itself a remarkable place. Not far at all from the city of Seattle, you actually drive through several different forest formations on the way to the ski area at the top. I have seen guys playing golf in the valley, witnessed the moss covered trees and then watched as rain turned into fabulous deep powder at the area. When you take the gondola to the top, on a clear day, you are witness to Mt. Ranier in all of its glory and it almost takes your breath away. I have seen a lot of mountains in my day but perhaps not as striking as Ranier on a clear day. Colorado has, I believe, over 40 “fourteeners” which are 14,000 ft high peaks but in the Washington and Oregon area, these fourteeners like Ranier, stand alone among the Cascade Range. When you make your way over to the High Campbell lift on the upper left side of the resort, you climb even higher than the gondola and have a magnificent view of Ranier and Mt. St. Helens 100 miles or so as the crow files in the distance. High Campbell is an old fixed grip two seater chair that always scares the heck out of me as it climbs up to the top. These volcanoes are pretty magnificent and when you strap your boards on to take a run down the High Campbell area or the Green Valley, you have to get your mojo back because you feel like you are a little dizzy standing in the middle of greatness. Crystal has some steep runs and you have to pay attention to what you are doing when you ski there. Lots of snow, lots of steeps and a magnificent area all in its own.

At the end of the day, when you have skied yourself into a state of utter fatigue, you can make your way back down the mountain and my vote is to head to Tacoma. A cool little city with a great brewery “The Harmon” http://www.harmonbrewingco.com Great seasonal beers on tap and really tasty food. My two local friends Jenni Beigh and Ray Adams introduced me to the joint and I don’t miss that experience when I am in the Seattle/Tacoma area. It is great to have some local buddies not only to show you the cool/offbeat places like the village of Issaquah, but also these cool little breweries and coffee places. Coffee reigns supreme in Seattle. The neat thing about Seattle/Tacoma is that you can do everying there. The ocean is right there and the mountains rise majestically from sea level. No wonder REI originated in Seattle because of all the outdoor activities and emphasis on that style of living from the locals. I have skied in the pouring rain there, mountain biked at Tiger Mountain in blistering heat, and had some of the best powder skiing as well there. If you don’t like the weather, wait a few minutes and it will change. If you have not been to Washington and Oregon, put it on your bucket list. Really neat states and fun outdoor loving people. Thanks for reading.

by

The Lord of Lumens

McCandless-20130303-00102 Last night was the welcome time change to daylight savings and I need to take a little break from the ski related posts to pay tribute to the guy who gets us all through the winter of mountain biking here in Westen Pa. Bob Bannon( aka The Lord of Lumens, Bush Barber Bob Bannon) is the king of lighting for mountain biking. Whether you want his home made lighting systems or you have an existing system that needs revamped, Bob is the undisputed king of lighting for winter mountain biking. For the uninitiated, the trails can be ridden here is Western Pa for most of the winter if you are willing to ride at night and join Bob on his weekly adventures through all the trails here. Like the postman who does not miss his appointed rounds, neither snow, sleet, rain or dead of night will keep Bob and his merry band of winter mountain bikers from riding their beloved trails.

Bob is also highly involved in maintaining trails here thus the moniker “Bush Barber.” He singlehandedly posts rides throughout the year not only in the evenings but on the weekends as well. If anyone deserves an award for his enthusiasm in support of the off road cycling crowd it surely is the Lord of Lumens. People love Bob. They like to ride with him because of his infectious energy and his knowledge of the local trail systems. If there are any techincal issues, he is the first to assist even though he advertises that if you ride with him, be ready to ride and make sure your bike is ready to ride. Nonetheless, he always is there to help and especially in the dark of the winter with his accumen on lighting.

The first time I met Bob I was a brand new mountain biker. I had a lot of experience riding a road bike but one day, I had the opportunity to buy a mountain bike which was pretty primitive in the mid eighties. Shocks were non existant at the time and cantilever brakes, rigid forks and fat tires were the norm. I managed to somehow hook up with Bob, Larry Freugh, Mike Louder, and Nick Milan on a ride in Riverview Park in the city. I had no experience and these guys were very experienced motorcross riders who were also avid mountain bikers. To my great surprise, these guys took off like a shot and even though my fitness level was good, my skills were sketchy and I can remember Bob fishing me out of some bushes below the trail upside down and my wheels still turning above me. They all chuckled as Bob helped me out and I continued the ride bruised and battered but not out for the count. Bob was very encouraging as he still is today. In those days, a lot of the rides took place in city parks with a stop at the Penn Brewery. When you are hot, tired and using the lights to navigate city park trails as well as old railroad bridges, the stop at the brewery was welcome not only to wet your whistle but to regroup and get your mojo back. I can remember many nights pounding up Federal Street, a monster of a steep hill on the Northside of Pittsburgh, with a Penn Brewery buzz and a heart rate of 180BPM thinking to myself,” this can’t be good.” But I managed to always hang on and eventually through riding with Bob, John O’Toole and the boys, I became a better rider. “The Old Men” as they are called are great teachers and Bob was always the ring leader.

I have done a lot of mountain bike riding since then and those adventures will be the subject of future posts but suffice to say for the moment that I am always grateful to Bob for getting me started. I was running the trails in the snow the other day when I came upon Bob and his pal Dr. Jack riding with their studded mountain bike tires. These guys have had a heck of a winter riding through all the weather and smiling the whole way. Bob’s infectious smile and his enthusiastic demeanor make him a welcome sight on even the coldest, bleakest snowiest day in Western Pa. If you ever need motivation, you need only to acquaint yourself with the Lord of Lumens and your days of coming home from work and sitting on the couch with a beer are over. Oh, you will drink that beer but only after you have earned it by riding in the icy, cold, winter nights with your mountain bike lights blazing the trails. Thank you Bob from all the mountain bikers in our area. We are truly indebted to you and love riding with you. Thanks for reading.

by

The Good Old Days

Franklin Park-20130307-00105 Through the help of the intergalactic world of communication, I was wishing my sister Molly a happy birthday in New Jersey and talking to my friend Melissa Updegraff who lives in Switzerland now, about the good old days at our home ski area of Seven Springs. The Laurel Mountains of Western Pa gave us all a lot of joy growing up and I dragged this old picture that you see here( hopefully it shows well) out of the archives to show you how we used to “do it all at Seven Springs.” My dad went into the poor house outfitting me in that snappy ski sweater and stretch pants with the racing stripe. Santa Claus came through with some nice Innsbruck wooden skis, cable bindings, and leather tie boots. Yes young ones, tie boots- where you had to tie both the inner boot and the outer boot snugly. If you look closely you will also notice the Arlberg strap which was the original safety strap that wrapped several times around your boot almost inviting a spiral fracture to occur. You will notice the fellow next to me had an older strap that just dragged on the ground and hopefully the poor sap did’t ski over it and crash.

It is amazing how equipment in all sports have changed. You can see that in golf clubs, tennis racquets, bicycles, and a myriad of other sporting equipment choices that are available to the public today. Ski equipment has radically changed from the good old days. We have shaped skis which are tuned by machine, made of the highest quality composites, and boots that have custom inner liners and orthodic sole inserts. A far cry from what we had to ski back in the mid sixties when this picture was taken. Those wooden skis had screw in edges that were placed in sections on the bottom and edges of the skis. There was little to no sidecut to help you turn if you put the ski on edge and the bindings were cable type that wrapped around your boot with little or no release setting. Our old neighbor Bob Rose, our hero who drove us every weekend to the mountains, elevated the ante when he became an expert at Cubco bindings. Now Mr. Rose mounted all of his kids skis with the infernal Cubcos. He simply drilled the holes in the skis in his basement and mounted the metal plate on the front of the boot. If the front spring was too tight or too rusted from a summer in the garage, you were surely a candidate to blow out your knees. Big Bob swore by those binders and ironcally there was an Angel that was a prominent part of Cubco advertising to make you believe that they were safe especially in the capable hands of Big Bob who mounted them and hoped for the best with the settings. ” Ah lets see now Annie- you probably weigh about x so we will crank these springs about three turns or so and hope they release when called upon.” These old skis with the cable bindings or the Cubcos were used with this Arlberg “safety” strap. Another misnomer in that when the binding released, the ski remained attached by the strap and was like a helicopter whirling out of control during the fall. If you didn’t get whacked in the head by the whirling ski, you were a fortunate soul. Hard to believe how we even skied on that old stuff with no grooming, icy conditions, and no snowmaking at the time. But we couldn’t get enough of it and Big Bob herded us all together at the end of the day or night and threw all of us in the big old station wagon for the trip back to the cabin. Cubco Bob- what a guy. He could have been the rep for those bindings. He probably knew more than the manufacturer.

Bear with us, non-skiers following the blog, as we march through memory lane on equipment. As we grew, Howard Head invented the first metal ski -The Head Standard. If you got a pair of those, you were defintely cool and those were followed by the Head 360 which I later received with Look Nevada bindings. As composites and aluminum came into the picture, we were captivated by Fisher Presidents or the Alu with Marker Rotomat(explodamat) bindings. But if you were totally cool, you admired Jean Claude Killy and Guy Perrilat, the famous French racers, and got a pair of Rossignol Stratos or a pair of Dynamic VR-17s. Ok my fellow compatriots- remember those? Got your memory stirring didn’t I? I will never forget racing in our little race at Seven Springs called the Standard Race. I had my Stratos and thought I would be faster if I dove accross the finish line at the end instead of just tucking through the finish. After I completely wiped out the timing wand, and blew out of both bindings, the people came running out of the lodge questioning what the hell I was doing? I explained my teen age theory and they all laughed as we tried to re-assemble the timing device. But I was defintely the cats meow with those Stratos.

Time marches on and many skis have crossed our paths in the mean time. But I will tell you that I was never so happy or as proud as when I received those first pair of wooden skis. As I have said in an earlier post, I was genuinely enthused and passionate about skiing and still am to this day. My folks were responsible for initiating me to the sport much to their credit as they scraped and scrapped to get the money to give me those treasured items. I will always be grateful to them for getting me started in this lifetime sport. I passed it on to the next generation with my son Jack. I had him out there at 2+1/2 but he turned into a basketball player. Some day though, when the ball days are finished, I am sure he will return to carry the torch. Or at least I hope so? Thanks for reading.